WELL THAT WAS INTERESTING

At our RV park in Dillon, Mt.  The Jeep was clean when I took this.

They say that a clean Jeep is a Jeep waiting for an adventure.  Our Jeep was still pretty clean since leaving Las Vegas so today we took it for a drive.  We actually had a number of good choices for places to explore but the bad news is that this being Montana and all it is a long ways away to get to anything.  (Except the Dairy Queen.  It's real close.)  Arlyene spotted what appeared to be the kind of Jeep road we like to explore to we headed off to the Big Sheep Creek road.  The entrance to this road was only 46 miles back south on I - 15!  But that was closer than any of the other options.   For Montana that is nothing at all.  Turns out that this road is a "National Back Country Byway".  We had never traveled one before and if this one was any example these roads are fairly well graded and maintained.  Unlike many Jeep roads we have traveled this one had no areas that were any trouble at all for our Jeep.  In fact I think you could have driven most of it with a mini van.  Dirty, gravel and remote, no doubt about that, but not really a driving challange.  In the first 15 miles of the 66 mile total drive on the byway, I think we passed perhaps a dozen vehicles and they were all going the opposite direction from us.  That should have been a clue.  We of course had no internet or cell coverage and at one point were questioning some of the preparations we should have made but didn't.   

Taken not far off I-15 where the road starts.  No pavement from here on.

The first 20-25 miles winds through canyons following Sheep Creek.  (We never saw any sheep) Here and there we spotted a cabin, sometimes close to the road, often far off in the distance.  Folks out here pretty much live off the grid.  Hard to imagine this road being passable at all in the winter months.

Eventually we broke out into a large valley with mountains on all sides.  Still some snow on most of the peaks.  Here we started to gain elevation as the road wound between two ranges through the valley and towards a pass far up ahead.

This sign gave us hope.  "Maybe we won't die out here after all".

There were a couple of places where we had to choose "left or right".  None of our fancy electronic gizmos was doing a very good job of telling us where we were.  These roads do not show up on many gps maps.  We kept working our way to the right and heading North which turned out the be the correct choice but at one point we were discussing how we might divide up the one energy bar we had between us.  We also began to wonder how long it would take for someone to find our bodies.

As we continued north on Medicine Lodge Road we came to the top of a pass with the sign marking the Old Bannack Road.  It was just two ruts in the brush to the left of this sign.  In addition to being used for freight it was also used to supply miners working in the mountains.  Portions of the road we were on were also part of the route as well.

Highest elevation of the day - close to 8000'  (Dillon is 5100)

Heading down from the pass.

 It is hard to see in the photo above but the road disappears far off into the distant foothills.  We were encouraged to see the high voltage power lines and farther down we began to see actual cows, another good sign that we were headed in the right direction.

Map of the Byway starting from I-15 at Dell

Same map with topographical view.

So we were able to save the energy bar and instead pick up a pizza in town.  In another hour or two we will be checking out the Dairy Queen drive through.  Oh, and for our Las Vegas friends and family it never got above about 85 degrees today.